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It’s What It Is Spent On That Matters

The right is shocked, shocked that government spends money! After eight years of unrestrained crony spending the Republicans are just SHOCKED that Obama is spending money.
Here is the difference. Under Bush the Republicans spent huge sums on subsidies for corporations and big campaign donors, and various corruptions. This spending was just waste and fraud to benefit an elite few. At the same time, they cut back on everything that helped people. And they cut back on maintaining the infrastructure and anything that invested in the future.
See Obama Releases $3.4 Trillion Budget Plan. Obama is cutting a lot of that spending that just went to reward Republican cronies.

He cited several examples, including a $465 million program to build an alternate engine for the Defense Department’s joint strike fighter, a program that Pentagon brass neither wants nor plans to use.
. . . About half of the trims would come from curbing defense programs that have been identified by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates as expendable. They include ending production of the F-22 fighter plane and canceling a new presidential helicopter fleet.

Meanwhile, as you know, the stimulus and other budget items greatly increase spending on maintaining the infrastructure, and the spending on green jobs promotes future economic growth that will more than pay for the spending that triggers it.
Remember when Eisenhower built the interstate highway system? That was investment spending, and it paid off.